


In Pursuit

by crookedcig



Category: Luther (TV), Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Police, murder spouses, peter and nightingale are in it for just a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:44:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8886073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedcig/pseuds/crookedcig
Summary: Luther and Alice encounter some unfamiliar faces that John had believed were just rumors.  Alice becomes obsessed with helping them solve a case.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sifr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sifr/gifts).



> I recently (as in over Thanksgiving) began reading the Rivers of London series, so at the last minute decided that what Yuletide really needed was a crossover event. I really would love to (and intend on) continuing this, mostly because it's just so much fun. 
> 
> Beverly is briefly mentioned, and John has a moment of thinking about Justin. The mystery of who Peter and Nightingale is pursuing might be a bit obvious, but I'm looking forward to unfolding the story now that it's started.

They are of a kind, the two of them. Looking back on it now, he would like to say that he recognized that in her, saw himself in her. It would be a lie, of course. He didn’t see her for what she was until later, and if he’s completely honest with himself he’s never really been solid on what he was. He’d lied to himself for too long.

“I’m still not entirely clear on how we ended up here.” He can hear her snort at that, her shoulders giving a little jerk and disturbing the air between them. The fact that neither of them had lost their sense of humor seemed like a good thing, despite their current predicament.

“If I remember correctly, there was a tall man in a very nice suit throwing what looked like fireballs at my head. And then you insisted on using a gun.” Even after all this time, which wasn’t much at all, the particular tone she took when mocking him for his penchant for brute force was still endearing. Sort of. And using the word  _ tone _ to describe the minute shift in her voice might have been overstating things.

“I feel like we’ll need to talk about the fireball thing later. When we’re sure they aren’t going to throw more at us.” Another little snort, and he could feel himself smiling wider. It was hard to remember what his life had been like before Alice Morgan had slaughtered her family and hidden the murder weapon by killing her dog and defiling the body. “You think if I wave a hankie they’ll be interested in parlay?”

“That would require you to have a hankie on hand, wouldn’t it?” He couldn’t fault her there. What he could fault her for was standing up and turning to face the men that had been doing all sorts of impossible things just moments before. “Are we done with all that, then?” Alice didn’t so much yell as she did speak just a little louder than before, but with enough force of will to push the words across the space between the overturned desk where she and John had been hiding and the open doorway their mysterious assailants had ducked on either side of. “Because my friend and I would be happy to have a conversation without shouting or being assaulted.” Silence greeted her offer and John had to bite back a toothy grin when she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned into one hip, lips pursed and eyes sharp. The swell of something like pride in his chest was almost enough to counteract the odd thing his gut did when she called him a friend.

“Happy to come out if the big one agrees he won’t throw his gun at my head. Bein’ out of bullets, and all.” The voice was London through and through, relatively young. Definitely didn’t belong to the be-suited one with the cane.

“What makes you think I don’t have more?” Feeling better about his immediate safety now that Alice hadn’t been shot or incinerated immediately, John heaved himself up and rolled his shoulders forward a little bit. He wasn’t built to try to be small for long.

“Not as many as you’d need.” That was the posh one, who came around the door with one hand raised about chest height and his other loosely clasping the shaft of a cane with a silver handle. He was slender and up-tight in an old fashioned way. Man out of time. The one who came up behind him was a bit of a revelation though; younger, black, and wearing both a stab vest and one of the horrendous standard issue high visibility jackets that gave John some uncomfortable flashbacks.

“You’re John Luther.” It was the first time in ages his name had been said without just as much derision as awe and it took John aback for a moment, staring at the young black man. Alice didn’t take her eyes off both of the men in front of them, still deceptively casual in posture. She was better at this than he was, he kept looking at her now and then, like she would give him some signal on how he was supposed to handle men who threw fireballs from their palms and apparently knew his name. “I thought you’d run off for good.”

“Going to do me favor of giving me your name, since you’ve already got mine?” Chances weren’t good of that happening, but at least if one of them was police there was a slim possibility this might end without him throwing his gun or Alice stabbing anyone. Slim.

“I am Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, and this is Constable Peter Grant.” They all stood there in silence for a moment, digesting the information on their own. Something chewed on the back of John’s brain, but he ignored it for the moment. “We have been pursuing a lead that led us to this woman, who I must assume is not actually Jamie Moriarty?” John shot Alice a look at that and she gave him that little smile that he knew spelled trouble in capital letters, all neon and lit up like a runway at night.

It’s the constable that looked like he wanted to smack the heel of his palm against his forehead, but restrained himself. When his boss looked confused, he rolled his eyes and huffed out a sharp noise that verged on being amused. 

“Sherlock Holmes.” Nightingale has the good graces to look momentarily bemused and after a moment all three men relax. Alice already looked that way but wasn’t, as John knew from personal experience. Even so, he tucked his gun away again and moved a bit closer without offering his hand to shake. They weren’t there yet.

“Safe to say she  _ isn’t  _ Jamie Moriarty, but also that neither is anybody else.” Rose sucked a little on her teeth and curled her lips in a mockery of a smile. Nightingale and Grant didn’t look even remotely phased, which was actually sort of impressive. “But now I’m curious as to what you thought you wanted her for?” John asked, fully aware that his own curiosity had been one of the worst things to ever happen to him, realistically. He watched the two men across from him trade a quick look. It was Grant who spoke, despite his boss’s frown and disapproving stare. If looks could kill.

“Somebody’s been stealing very rare books and using them to ransom people into doing not good things.” Grant didn’t quite speak to them like they were Joe Q. Public, or something above the average drooling idiot. But he certainly didn’t address John the way he’d been used to, when he was a cop himself, or even after when they all seemed to hate him one way or another.

“So you’re what, the library brigade?” Brows ticking up, John shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, mostly in a vain attempt not to twitch. He could feel Alice’s eyes switching between the back of his neck and Nightingale’s face. Staring contest between the two of them would have been impressive. “Because I know you’re not murder investigation team.” Jerking his chin at Nightingale, he snorted, adding, “And you’re barely a copper at all.” 

“We work out of Russell Square,” Grant dragged out the last two words, like he was giving John enough time to catch up. Nightingale seemed far more concerned in watching Alice breathe, so he ignored the both of them for a moment and let the chewing sensation at the back of his skull take over. Some long-lost bit of information, discarded before he’d even thrown away his career, before Zoe and everything had gone to shit…

“You’re the fucking wizard.” It was out before he could stop himself, surprise making his voice crest and fall strangely, even to his own ears. Grant looked like he wanted to laugh, Nightingale looked irked, and Alice looked like she was afraid he’d finally, well and truly lost it. That seemed about right. Glancing at his companion, he pointed a thumb at their former pursuers. “The Met’s got a pet wizard they’ve been feeding for ages. I thought it was all rumor, never had any real purpose to find otherwise, thank god.”

“Yeah, because regular murder is so much better than the magical kind.” Peter Grant had a good sense of humor and a steady head. John liked him, mostly despite himself, and hoped he was getting better guidance with Nightingale than Luther had gotten with his own DCI out of the gate. Things had changed enough in the met in the last decade plus, but not that much.

“It certainly is significantly less complicated,” said Nightingale himself, revealing that he had a dry wit that demanded at least a little appreciation. Still not the sort of person that John wanted to be running into in the middle of the night, especially not if he was inclined to report sighting them together. Grant almost chuckled.

“Stealing books isn’t my particular thing.” The last word dragged against her lips and Alice smiled when Grant looked like he got a bit hot under the collar. Boys were always getting besotted with her. It would have been hilarious, if John didn’t occasionally find himself in their shoes. “Emotional manipulation, yes. But books are very unwieldy and people have far more interesting tender bits.” She was still watching Nightingale like a bloody hawk, the entire weight of her significant attention on him. He didn’t look perturbed, which frightened John a little when he thought back on it. Not just anyone could deal with the sustained laser beam of her focus. “Show me the stuff with the fireballs again?”

“Now that we’re aware you aren’t part of this investigation, we should be going,” Nightingale stated flatly, glancing at Grant. The constable fished around in his pockets for a moment, all thumbs, and John had a momentary stab of guilt about another constable at another time. Peter handed him a card just as Nightingale disappeared around a corner.

“If you see something, say something?” John offered as Grant turned to follow his boss. The constable gave him a grin and a sort-of-salute, all cheek, before going off himself. “Not sure I like all that, but it was better than it could have been.” Alice was quiet still, rubbing her gloved fingers against her sleeve and staring off into the middle distance, right near where the wizard had fucked off. “C’mon, then.” He had to get a big hand around her elbow and practically lift her off her feet to get her going. “C’mon, you know I don’t like frog marchin’ you.” She always got back at him later, when he was least expecting it. She finally got herself moving in the right direction after a couple moments of all but dragging her through the room.

They were in the car and almost twenty minutes into traffic before she said anything.

“We should do it.” Her voice had the kind of lilt to it that let him know she was smiling; her real smile, the one that made her eyes shine like ice in her skull. Rather than respond, John kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. The beater he’d picked up a few weeks back just so they’d have an inconspicuous set of wheels didn’t exactly handle well and he knew if he was quiet for long enough, she’d tell him on her own. He was patient enough for her, just barely. 

“We should solve their case for them.” When he finally glanced at her, she was looking out the window, watching London roll past them at what was possibly the slowest rate he’d ever seen. Their city was not kind with her traffic.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re not responding to the wizard bit at all.” He wanted to be annoyed. Or at least perturbed. But nothing about her had even irked him for a while now and there was no going back at this point. Useless to try. She levelled him with a look that made it clear she expected a full reporting later, and knew she’d get one. “Why do you think we should solve their case for them, then?”

Alice just hummed, and they sat for a while until the silence and the lack of progress towards home frustrated him enough to pop on the radio. Queen rolled through the speakers, and at least that was enough to distract him for a while, running his fingers over the steering wheel and thinking about girls with big asses.

Home these days wasn’t much to brag about. Big, empty, chilly. She’d found it and paid for it somehow, and he was past the point of asking a lot of questions. Logistics were often better left for her, and he could even admit that much to himself now. Alice handled housing far better than he did, and left the cars to him most of the time. It worked, for now.

They were barely inside the door when she was pushing him against a wall, small hands sliding up his chest under his overcoat, pushing it back and effectively trapping his arms with the sleeves caught on his biceps. John could still reach her hips, touch her ribs, but it wasn’t like he was really all that upset about being crowded by a pretty girl that had a penchant for stripping his clothes off and making him come, when she was of a mind.

“They know her,” she cooed, her hand already his his trousers, teasing him. “They know who’s stealing the books and making people do bad things, and they don’t really want to catch her themselves.” No great shock, that her hand was getting him hard quickly, chest heaving as his breath caught. “They don’t want to  _ hurt _ her.” She had a particular way of saying the word hurt, like it tasted different on her tongue than all the others. “Fortunately, we have no such qualms, do we, John?” His name caught on her teeth and she washed it around her mouth a bit, greedy with the sound of it.

Another night, another time, he might have let her play as long as she wanted. But the adrenaline had worn off and the smell of burnt hair was wafting around her head, clinging to the pashmina she’d wrapped around her neck to keep it warm and hidden all day. The sight of the fireball breezing past her head (almost taking it off entirely) shook him in a way it would never shake her, and he had some reassuring to do, all for himself. A quick yank (and a yelp on his part when she didn’t let go as fast as he’d like) he had her up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the tangle of his coat making things exciting purely through the risk of both of them getting injured if (when) he crashed into something. Her elbow in the back of his head, her sharp fingers digging into his ass nearly sent them hurtling to the ground, but he managed to get them at least to the mattress in the corner, the nest of blankets and pillows he sometimes earned himself a temporary banning from for being dull or dim.

Alice always liked the fights. They did something to the reptile part of her brain, made her less cruel and more physical. More rooted in herself. She didn’t even give him enough time to get undressed, just pulled off her thick tights and hiked up her skirt, settling on top of him with one of his hands trapped in his coat under him. While he was struggling to free himself, wanting to touch and enjoy, she rode him slowly, eyes shut and head tipped back, taking what she wanted. Her fingers were blades digging into his belly, his chest, giving her purchase as she got her knees better under her weight. Finally getting his hand on her thigh, John grinned when she shivered only to watch her smirk in return when she came down hard and forced a needy, desperate noise out of him.

Later, when she was showering, he tried to put both their clothes to rights. Gave up almost immediately and tossed them in a pile onto a chair. He did manage to find his phone, undamaged, and the card Constable Peter Grant had given him, wrinkled and rounded but still legible. After a moment’s hesitation, he tapped out a message.

 

_ Not sure you really want our help, but now you’ve got it. She’s got some ideas already. _

 

A couple minutes later, he sent another.

 

_ You may want to warn your friend. _

 

Halfway across the city, finishing a beer on Beverly Brook’s couch, Peter Grant checked his phone and had a very distinct feeling that he’d made a large mistake.


End file.
